OTTAWA – Although victory morale doesn’t appear in the victory column, the Ottawa Senators seem to have picked up on one in finding the identity and level of play they want.
Despite a valiant comeback attempt, the Senators fell 5-4 to the Vegas Golden Knights Thursday night. Ottawa trailed 5-1 midway through the second half before finding their way back and failing to equalize late in the game.
“If you play the way we played in the second and third periods, you’re going to win a lot of games,” said Senator head coach DJ Smith. “There’s no such thing as a moral victory in sport but you get that effort from the guys we got tonight and you’re going to start winning a lot of hockey games.”
“That’s the identity we want to play, is second and third there,” added Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk, who scored two assists. “Unfortunately, we just went down too much where we couldn’t come back. That second and third period was in my opinion one of the best hockey we’ve played all year… there are a lot of positives to take from tonight.”
The Senators (4-6-0) are now on a four-game losing streak while the Knights’ win (10-2-0) saw them win six in a row.
Mark Stone, Reilly Smith, Zach Whitecloud, Chandler Stephenson and William Carrier each scored for Vegas. Logan Thompson made 42 saves for the Knights.
Claude Giroux and Tim Stutzle both scored a pair of goals for Ottawa. Anton Forsberg let in all five goals on 19 shots before Cam Talbot, making his season debut and the Senator, came on and made 13 saves.
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“We let them off the hook,” said Stone. “I think we just thought the game was over. We started trying to make the game, and if you look at the goals we scored, we forechecked them, made them make turnovers, and then we fell into that trap and started doing it ourselves.
“You definitely want to learn from him. It wasn’t a perfect game from us by any means. ”
Stone opened the scoring against his former team just 1:22 into the game, picking up the loose puck up front and scoring.
Under three minutes later, Giroux managed to capitalize on the rebound in his favor.
Looking to go on a line change, Giroux shot a puck from the middle of the ice and scored as the puck bounced off Thompson.
“I’ve probably tried it more than 500 times in my career and it never worked,” says Giroux. “When I entered, it was already past. I’m very happy when I see goals like that.”
Smith added a power-play goal midway through the period. With just 31.6 seconds remaining in the first set, Stone crossed to Whitecloud for the first of the season to give Vegas a 3-1 lead.
Stephenson’s short goal made it 4-1 for the Knights just five minutes into the second minute. Minutes later, a brutal gift by Alex DeBrincat allowed Carrier to walk alone in Forsberg and beat him to the foot.
It marked the end of Forsberg’s night.
However, the Senators managed to equalize in two at the end of the period.
As the power play ended, Jake Sanderson crossed to Giroux which made it 5-2 with his second goal of the night at 14:23.
With less than two minutes remaining in the period, Thompson thought he had stopped Tkachuk’s shot, but the puck flowed through his cushion and Stutzle pushed it over the goal line for his second of the season.
Ottawa made it 2:34 in the third half when Stutzle took advantage of a Knights turnover and played give-and-go with Tkachuk before scoring his second of the night.
Vegas had a chance to take the lead with a 5-on-3 lead that lasted 59 seconds, but Talbot made two big saves for the Senators.
“That was a big point in the game,” Talbot said of the two-man advantage. “At the time there wasn’t much action so far and I just went out there and fought three guys in front of me. So that’s all you can really do when a power game is going on like that — just be as patient as possible and throw your body forward when you can.”
INTERESTING FACTS OR STATUS
Senator goalkeeper Anton Forsberg faced the most shots in the NHL (276) ahead of Thursday’s game and also made the most saves (251). Forsberg has played in nine of Ottawa’s 10 games.
NOTE: Ottawa goalkeeper Cam Talbot, who has a rib injury, is on the bench for the first time this season. Shane Pinto moved to the top row to center Brady Tkachuk and Drake Batherson.
NEXT
The Senators host the Philadelphia Flyers Saturday night, while the Vegas Golden Knights head to Montreal to take on the Canadiens Saturday afternoon.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on November 3, 2022.
© 2022 The Canadian Press
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